In parts of rural Jharkhand where access to schooling, health information and menstrual hygiene remains inconsistent, the Nishchay Foundation represents a model built not on funding or scale, but sustained local engagement. The foundation, led by social worker Tarun Kumar, came into existence after years of field exposure that began long before he formally registered an organisation.
Where It Began: 2009, Jamshedpur (Tarun’s Student Years)
Tarun’s entry into social work began in 2009, when he was studying at an intermediate college in Jamshedpur. Coming from a teacher’s household, he grew up in a relatively stable environment and assumed that the same opportunities existed everywhere. That changed when he entered college and met tribal students from interior Jharkhand who struggled even with Hindi comprehension.
Curious to understand why, he took up a part-time job that required visiting students’ villages. In these remote pockets of Jharkhand, he observed:
- schools where even Class 9 and 10 students lacked basic foundational knowledge
- irregular teaching systems
- families with little exposure to formal education
Seeing how sharply rural students were being left behind, he joined NGOs working on child rights, where his focus included encouraging school attendance and discouraging child marriage. But this work revealed a structural gap: children were being told to report abuse or rights violations, but NGOs were often not allowed to support them after the complaint. Tarun felt this disconnect deeply. Awareness alone—without sustained support—was not solving the problems children faced.
This unresolved gap became the seed for Nishchay.
The Turning Point: A Student’s Death and an Unaddressed Issue
During this period, a tragedy shifted the direction of his work. A girl from his college died soon after the onset of menstruation—an event that exposed how little information, support or menstrual infrastructure existed in rural schools.
From conversations with girls in the villages, Tarun learned that:
- many believed menstruation was a disease
- several had used unhygienic methods for years
- girls often faced silence, fear and misinformation
- some avoided school for extended periods
This was the first time he recognised the scale of the menstrual-hygiene information gap. It was not a standalone issue—it affected health, confidence, attendance and the ability to speak openly about basic bodily processes.
The First Structured Initiative: Pad Banks & School Workshops (2015–16)
Tarun gathered a small group of like-minded colleagues. Without funding, they spent months talking to girls, understanding local beliefs and developing an age-appropriate training curriculum.
By 2015–2016, they launched their first project:
- establishing a Pad Bank in a government school
- conducting workshops on menstrual hygiene
- integrating topics like Good Touch–Bad Touch, safety and puberty into school-compatible formats
This became the foundation’s core approach: teach, create access, and build trust simultaneously.
Impact: More Than 1,00,000 People Reached Through Workshops
In the past decade, Tarun and his team have worked across 7–8 villages and surrounding areas, conducting workshops for:
- adolescent girls
- mothers
- schoolchildren
- community groups
Based on their field records and accumulated experience, Tarun estimates that over 1,00,000 people have participated in their sessions or village engagements.
A Model Built Without Funding: Community Participation Over Donor Dependency
One of the foundation’s defining features is its refusal to rely on sponsorships. Nishchay has:
- no corporate funding
- no institutional grants
- no external donors
Instead, they run on a community-driven contribution model.
“Gift Sanitary Pads for Girls” Campaign
When the foundation ran out of sanitary pads within its first year, they launched a simple idea:
ask for pads—not money.
The result:
- 5,160 individuals donated sanitary pads
- 3,000+ of them were boys and young men
Tarun notes that many boys bought pads for the first time, which marked a significant cultural shift.
The campaign was later recognised by the Limca Book of Records (2018) for the number of individual contributors.
To sustain their fieldwork, Tarun and his team take up freelance jobs, earning around ₹10,000–15,000 per month, which covers:
- village travel (70–100 km at times)
- pad procurement
- workshop material
- basic operational costs
This is why the foundation often describes itself as entirely community-supported.
Expanding Programmes Beyond Menstrual Health
Today, Nishchay Foundation runs 7–8 projects that cover:
- gender equality
- education
- child safety
- environment
- health
- youth leadership
A consistent element across programs is their peer-training model—adolescents trained by Nishchay create micro-groups in their villages, ensuring continuity even when the team is not physically present.
Looking Ahead: Preparing Rural Youth to Lead Their Own Movements
Tarun’s long-term vision is to support the emergence of local youth leaders who can guide their communities independently. He believes that adolescents who have been part of Nishchay’s programmes for the past 10–15 years already show signs of becoming local change-agents.
The foundation’s future focus is on strengthening these youth networks across rural Jharkhand and similar low-resource areas.
A Movement Sustained by Persistence, Not Resources
Despite uncertainties, distance, and a complete absence of funding, Tarun and his team have continued their work uninterrupted for over a decade. Their impact comes not from scale or budgets, but consistency:
- returning to the same villages
- building trust over years
- addressing problems through presence rather than paperwork
Nishchay Foundation demonstrates what long-term grassroots commitment looks like in India: slow, demanding and often invisible—but deeply transformative for the communities it touches.